Shazia Mirza

Shazia Mirza is a British stand-up comedian, actor and columnist, born in Birmingham to Punjabi Pakistani parents. A science teacher before comedy, she came to prominence after 2001 with routines about being a Muslim woman in Britain, was named one of the BBC's 100 Women of 2013, and has toured shows including The Kardashians Made Me Do It and Coconut. ¹

Mirza was born in Birmingham, England, the eldest daughter of Punjabi Pakistani parents who moved to Birmingham in the 1970s. ¹ Her birth date is publicly unsettled: the English article deliberately carries none, noting it "has been frequently altered without citation", while Wikidata gives 3 October 1972 on a FreeBMD record reference and the Urdu article files her under 1972 births, so the museum records the year 1972 as debated. ^{1 2 3} She read biochemistry at the University of Manchester, took a PGCE at Goldsmiths, University of London, and later studied acting at Rose Bruford College. ¹ Before comedy she taught science for fourteen years, at Langdon Park School among others, where one of her pupils was Dylan Mills, later the grime artist Dizzee Rascal. ¹

Mirza's breakthrough came with a routine she first performed about a year into her comedy career, in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, opening with the line "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's licence"; she was profiled on CBS's 60 Minutes in the United States. ² Her stand-up, often described as ground-breaking and brave, draws on her life as a Muslim woman in Britain, and The Telegraph named her among the fifty defining acts of twenty-first-century British comedy. ¹ Her touring shows include The Kardashians Made Me Do It, which ran for a record 103 performances, and Coconut, nominated for Best Stand Up Tour at the National Comedy Awards. ¹ She was a columnist for The Guardian from 2008 to 2010, has also written for the New Statesman — winning Columnist of the Year at the PPA Awards — The Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times and the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, and in April 2007 presented the BBC Three documentary F*** Off, I'm a Hairy Woman. ^{1 2} In 2025 she made her debut in EastEnders as the paediatrician Dr Ayub. ¹

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